Chatbots: 3 Uses for Your HR Department

Human, always more human. In fact, the current trend is to humanize all automated exchanges, not only those between marketing teams and customers. Companies are integrating chatbots more and more in their internal processes in order to promote a more fluid relationship between departments and staff. Artificial intelligence is here to lend a helping hand to human resources. Here’s how.

Recruiting with the support of chatbots

When people visit the Army website to submit an application, they are welcomed by a friendly guide. He calls himself Master Corporal Dupont and he’s responsible for communicating preliminary information to rookie soldiers. He even has a Viadeo profile. But you see, Officer Dupont doesn’t really exist. Behind this good-natured man is a chatbot designed to provide information to users. When the inquiries become more precise, he steps down to another consultant—this time, flesh and blood.

These days, the Army isn’t the only one to use chatbots in its recruitment process. Numerous companies have followed the movement and with good reason: a conversational robot makes it possible to humanize a traditionally unilateral relationship. Instead of blindly submitting a résumé and cover letter, the candidate is guided by the chatbot, who presents the company, provides a general job description of the open position and responds to any questions regarding it.

Better yet, the machine can progressively assume the behaviors of a recruiter. It can question the candidate and analyze the responses before transmitting its analysis to the HR department. The department will also receive all the necessary material for preparing a face-to-face interview with the applicant. The possibilities for innovation in this realm are innumerable, starting with semi-automated management of the initial stages of the application process, including online webcam interviews with a recruitment bot!

Of course, a chatbot will never be a replacement for human intuition and finesse, but it does represent a genuine natural extension of the HR department, capable of taking over the phases with the least value added.

Robotized training = personalized training

The question of training new employees also has a technological solution in the chatbot: properly trained by its colleagues in Human Resources and Training, it becomes a true source of knowledge within the company, all the more easily because it’s fed an enormous amount of information that can be continuously updated and enriched.

Thus, new arrivals, trainees and current employees in the process of changing positions can all benefit from a trainer that’s both original and effective. To offer an incomparable user experience, a chatbot draws on the benefits of blended learning. A veritable mixture of genres that borrows from massive open online courses (MOOC), e-learning methods and internal company data, which you’ll want to communicate to it upstream. More than a professor, the chatbot is transformed into an aggregator. With all the potential this implies in terms of knowledge.

Another strength of a conversational robot is its capacity to personalize the training it provides. Based on all the knowledge it has acquired, including knowledge about the staff, the virtual trainer will provide training that’s specifically adapted to the needs of each individual employee. A short preliminary interview might even allow it to get its lessons off on the right track from the very start. Thus, the training will be more pertinent, while remaining perfectly in sync with the spirit of the company.

Chatbots create a new, passionate training channel, capable of supplying the right knowledge just when the employee needs it, sometimes even before being asked.

Optimizing your company’s HR operations

The advantages of an HR chatbot aren’t limited to the recruitment and training phases. Artificial intelligence has plenty of other tricks up its sleeve, especially when it comes to relieving you of certain repetitive administrative tasks, while helping to simplify relations between employees and the HR department.

In fact, a chatbot can even play the role of company e-concierge. Tireless and always faithful to its position, a conversational robot is tantamount to a non-stop HR department. There’s no more need to worry about providing continuous HR service in the evenings or on weekends for those employees who work alternative schedules or those who work from home. The most frequently asked questions and the most common needs are handled by the chatbot: requests for time off, concerns related to a mutual fund, questions about the most recent pay stub, etc.

And when the questions exceed its abilities, poof! They’re immediately transferred to the HR department for an expert response. The fact that there’s always a human behind the interface is a decisive factor in gaining the support of your staff.

Behind Master Corporal Dupont and all his chatbot friends, there are more than just machines: true value added for your HR department. A reinforced rapport and fewer time-consuming administrative tasks: that’s what you can expect from a conversational robot. And that’s precisely what Living Actor proposes: a chatbot dedicated to your HR department, who’s attentive to your staff and embodied by an avatar for a more human user experience. Contact us to learn more!